LET’S FINISH SUFFOLK ! THE QUEEN’S HEAD, BRAMFIELD.

June 2025. Bramfield. Suffolk.

My Dad reached 90 at the end of January, a remarkable achievement considering his appetite for Chinese food, a mid-life heart bypass, 50 years of manual work and the stresses caused by his son over an even longer period.

Some of that stress would no doubt have come on the A1120 (aka Scenic Route) to our caravan near the Suffolk coast at Leiston (I remembering Elvis dying here*).

“Are we nearly THERE yet, Dad ?”.

Highly possible we’d have used the garage at Bramfield, where I finally completed the Suffolk chapter of the GBG.

I don’t remember many sea shanties,

or Southwold (Bitter or otherwise) on those idyllic teenage holidays, just a growing sense that I’d rather be back in Waterbeach.

The Queen’s Head, rather unnecessarily labelled “The Head at Bramfield” on the map,

sounds like a good bet for a rare pint of Adnams.

Another year, another Guide entry for Greater Halesworth. The Queen’s Head lacks the informality of the wonderful Westhall Greyhound (they called me “Sir” twice), but it’s pretty much what you want from a heavily beamed roadside dining pub playing Lily Allen and Shawn Mendes.

We’d called before we left to ask if they’d still be open at 5pm for a drink. “We should be” the reassuring response.

Oooh look ! Craft beers, in rural Suffolk (cans, mind).

No Adnams on the bar, in fact nothing the average 40 year old Dad or 72 year old gentlefolk would recognise. Oddly, no (zero) pubs at all in Southwold in the GBG either.

“Which beer is going fastest ?“. The lone bloke sitting at the bar eyes me suspiciously.

“It depends what sort of beer you’ like”. It really doesn’t.

“I like everything. Whichever is selling quickest, please”.

If this all sounds like the set-up for a plant pot pour in the (idyllic) garden, you’ll be disappointed to hear the Nene Valley was a, ahem, Simple Pleasure, cool and hoppy (NBSS 3+).

In its own glass, too. A classy operation that didn’t make us feel unwelcome as non-diners, though in truth I didn’t see another pint poured the 20 minutes I loitered by the classy charity book section.

What next. As Dave and Joan will know, Suffolk also means churches…

*I mean, Elvis didn’t actually die in Leiston, or did he ? At 12 I had no idea who Elvis was.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

8 thoughts on “LET’S FINISH SUFFOLK ! THE QUEEN’S HEAD, BRAMFIELD.”

    1. That’s an interesting question, as wasn’t really into music until 14 or 15, and the Elvis reissues that charted here were mainly the love songs. I heard the comeback specials a decade later love “An American Trilogy”, but it’s only this year I saw the Ed Sullivan show video,

      and it all made sense. How about you ?

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      1. Oddly enough, In The Ghetto is one of the first that I remember knowing that it was Elvis singing. I can recall hearing it on AM radio driving through Chicago late at night with my father who was no Elvis fan. Other than that, it would be Blue Suede Shoes which was ubiquitous on the radio. Only recently did I listen to an Elvis album start to finish. I listened to his first album and found it quite spotty…

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      2. Yes, In the Ghetto and Suspicious Minds and Always on my mind came to define Elvis more than the 50s stuff.

        That swagger on the Ed Sullivan show is, nearly 70 years on, quite astonishing.

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      3. Joan was asking about why Elvis the other day. I played her Carl Perkins doing Blue Suede Shoes. Then I said, listen to this and played Elvis doing it. Carl Perkins was great; Elvis is a whole other level. You can still hear it.

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  2. I was in Suffolk on Sunday and visited the White Horse Sweffling .King head Laxfield and the Westhall and Wenhaston pubs.
    Plus the churches at Westhall Wenhaston and Blytheburgh
    I see the White Horse is up for sale due to retirement and I hope new owner will not make too many changes
    Plus the churches at Westhall Wenhaston and Blytheburgh
    On the way home my cars power steering failed in Halesworth and due to closure of Orwell Bridge had to negotiate the bends of the A1120 with very heavy steering to get home to London
    Exhausting
    Planning a trip soon to do the GBG pubs of Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth.
    By train this time and I think only halves in most of them
    I am not BRAPA!

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